


We're in This Together

by whatsanapocalae



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Past Abuse, Polyamory, Repressed Memories, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: A series for all of my polya au stuff! this au was designed by Ruvikkin!





	1. A Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RuvikKin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuvikKin/gifts).



> Sebastian accidentally hits Stefano and Stefano offers Sebastian something he never wanted. Luckily Joseph is there to help figure out what's going on.

One of these days, they were going to get a bell for Stefano. 

He walked around the house so quietly, padding around barefoot on hardwood, and he had learned all of the creaky steps in order to avoid them. It caused them all to jump, when he seemed to materialize out of no where, and he would smirk, even as he apologized, and then he would keep on doing it. That meant that there were times that they thought he wasn’t in the house though, or just, didn’t know where in the house he was. 

Sebastian was hanging a framed photo in the hall, of the six of them, among the clutter of other images that had been hung. They were almost all Stefano’s photos, though Joseph and Sebastian had a few as well, all of them of their family. He’d measured and marked and gotten every thing ready, all that was left was hammering in the nail. 

He brought back the hammer and felt some hard against his elbow, paired with a sharp yelp, and then the thundering of feet as Stefano picked himself up and turned on his heel. 

“Stef?” Sebastian called out, seeing him dart around a corner and heard him going up the stairs, ignoring the noisier steps. He was good at avoiding them, to the point that Sebastian had often wondered if it was on purpose. 

He set down the hammer, his pulse raising, hurrying up the stairs after him. He hadn’t meant to, he didn’t even know he was there, he was surprised this hadn’t happened before. Stefano’s reaction was different than expected, he’d wanted to grab a hold of him immediately, apologize, check on the damage, but Stefano had fled. That wasn’t normal for someone like him, that wasn’t normal for him. Sebastian felt something twist in his stomach as he heard the studio door slam closed and locked. 

“Stefano?” he asked, going to the door and knocking on it softly. “Stefano, can I come in?”

He didn’t respond. That was a problem all on it’s own. 

“Stefano, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there. I didn’t mean to hit you, I promise,” he tried again. 

There was still nothing. Sebastian leaned against the wall. Most of the time, when Stefano locked himself away like this, it was for work purposes. A locked door meant that there was no chance of light coming in and destroying his film. Sebastian had installed the lock himself. He wished that it wasn’t there now though. 

“Please, can I see you? Can I talk to you in person?” 

Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door but still couldn’t hear anything. He didn’t even know where his elbow had landed. 

“I’m not going to leave, alright? I’m going to stay right here until you talk to me,” Sebastian sat down, his back against the wall.

Nothing.

A few minutes past and Sebastian was twitching, his ass and his back hating the position he was in. He shifted but he stayed there. 

A few more minutes and Sebastian wanted to speak, to do something, to try to get through the door. He knew that Stefano knew that he was there though, he didn’t need to make his presence known further. 

It was almost a half hour and Sebastian was worried. He didn’t know what he’d hit and he wondered if he’d truly damaged Stefano somehow, if he’d broken his nose or something else. He was about to get to his feet and knock again, fight the urge to get a drill and take off the lock, when he heard the lock turn. 

The door opened. 

Stefano was expressionless, his hair covering most of his face, when he came out. His clothing was pristine, his hands tight fists at his sides, the only thing giving him away as being anything other than an emotionless blank slate. Sebastian pulled himself to his feet, knees popping angrily from how long he’d sat on the floor. 

“Shit Stefano, are you alright?” he asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice, “I didn’t see you, I’m so sorry.”

Stefano raised his hands, devoid of gloves, the scars on his knuckles white lines, and slowly opened them, palms up. He kept his eyes down, staring at Sebastian’s feet. This was unlike him, Sebastian didn’t know what he was doing. Even through his hair Sebastian could see the red on his cheek, the bruise still forming. 

Sebastian didn’t know what to do, how to react. Stefano slowly went down to his knees and there was something almost holy in his poising, though it wasn’t a prayer position for any faith that Sebastian knew. 

“I am so very grateful for everything that you have given me,” Stefano said, his accent thicker than it had been lately, even though his hands didn’t move at all and neither did his emotions. “You have spared and saved my life, you have brought me to your home and made me a part of it, and you have shown care for when I was unable to care for myself.” 

Sebastian licked his lip, wanting to surge forward, to take those hands and pull Stefano to his feet. This sounded like a break up, like Stefano was leaving, and Sebastian didn’t know why, could hardly listen to him, to his words, as the panic raised up inside of him. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. It had been an accident. Stefano couldn’t leave him, leave them, for one small accident. 

“I have no way to repay you for that, for all you have done for me, aside from give myself over to you,” Stefano continued. There was a sound downstairs, the door opening, voices. “My body is yours, to do with as you please. If you wish to entertain yourself with violence or with carnal acts, you may, until you grow tired of it it is yours. You may dispose of it however you choose, when it no longer satisfies you. Share me or lock me away, I am yours.”

Sebastian didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t understand that. The blood was so loud in his ears and he wanted to cover them, wanted to ignore that pulse, wanted to drown out what Stefano was saying. He didn’t want to understand what Stefano was saying. He knew exactly what Stefano was saying. 

“No,” he reached out for Stefano’s hands, watching as the tension rose and he snatched them away, his fingers tight against his chest. He wanted to reach out more, to grab a hold of Stefano to try to understand why he was saying all of these things. “No, I’m not going to do that. Stefano, I don’t want it, I don’t want you to prostate yourself to me. I’m… we’re-

Stefano slid his hand inside of his jacket and drew out a long and wicked knife. It wasn’t as big as the one he had in Union and it wasn’t unusual for him to have it on his person, it had become a security blanket for him of sorts, but here, like this, Sebastian could feel sweat on his brow at the sight of it. 

Stefano placed it in his hand and then pulled his chin up, exposing his throat. Like this Sebastian could see just how red Stefano’s eye was and he wondered how much of the time he’d been outside Stefano had been silently crying in there. 

“If you don’t want me, then please, feel free to end me now. You have my explicit permission to destroy me.”

“What’s going on here?” 

Sebastian turned, seeing Joseph there, having come up the stairs. He was looking from Sebastian to Stefano and back again, eyes lingering on the knife. 

“Please,” Sebastian begged, “help me here?” 

Joseph stepped further into the hall, concern on his face. Stefano didn’t shift, acting as if he didn’t realize Joseph was even there. 

“What happened?” Joseph asked, kneeling down at Stefano’s side, looking him over but not touching him. 

“He was behind me, I didn’t see him, and I accidentally hit him,” Sebastian explained, watching helplessly as Joseph wrapped an arm around Stefano’s back, making him shudder and come back to himself a bit. “He’s been like this ever since.”

“I see,” Joseph nodded, helping Stefano back up to his feet. The moment that they were both standing Stefano tucked a hand onto Joseph’s stomach, two of his fingers hidden under the opening in his vest, guarded by the buttons on either side. He hid his face as well, against Joseph’s next. “Why don’t you go downstairs and help Ruben with the groceries? I’ll see what I can do here.”

Sebastian nodded, even though he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to make things right. He wanted to make Stefano realize just how sorry he was. 

He made his way down the stairs while Joseph walked Stefano over to one of the couches in the open living space. Ruben didn’t know what was going on, he was just pulling things out of their reusable bags and filling the fridge. He glanced up when Sebastian entered the kitchen, setting Stefano’s knife on the counter, and slowly lowered the package in his hands, reading over Sebastian’s body language with a cold eye. 

“What did you do this time?” he asked, almost as coldly. 

He didn’t need coldness. He needed comfort. He walked up behind Ruben and wrapped his arms around him, nuzzling against his ear. “I messed up.”

“I can tell,” Ruben scoffed. 

“I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. Stefano was right behind me when I was hanging a picture and I accidentally elbowed him in the face.”

“Well, that would explain why the picture’s still on the floor,” Ruben stood still, unable to continue his work with Sebastian rubbing his nose into his neck. “You do realize he doesn’t take physical pain well? Or emotional really.”

Sebastian thought back on that. If Stefano was dealing it to himself it wasn’t good but he could handle it, but in the bedroom he was often the one dealing the pain instead of taking it. He lived off of praise, not orders or degradation. 

“What are you trying to say?” he didn’t want to say it. He didn’t even want to guess. He was certain that he knew what Ruben was getting at though. 

“What was his relationship with Theodore?” 

Sebastian shrugged and held Ruben tighter. He didn’t know. He’d done his best not to know. He could tell that there was more than a patron and artist relationship there and it was obvious in how Stefano would never make eye contact, how much he’d flinched at every surprising movement. He should have known. He should have recognized it in how Stefano had referred to Theodore alone.

“I fucked up.”

It was Ruben’s turn to shrug, “You didn’t know. And you said it was an accident, yourself.”

“I should have recognized it though. I’m supposed to be good at this stuff.” 

“I’ve seen your skills at perception. You’re not good at noticing things when they’re close to you at times; especially when it’s someone you care about.”

Sebastian grumbled at that. He was a detective. He was supposed to be good at that stuff. Ruben was right though. There had been more than enough evidence when they met that he could be blind to what was effecting him. 

Ruben twisted in his arms though, turned so that they were facing one another, and he lifted a hand to Sebastian’s jaw, cradling it. “He’ll heal. He’s healed from worse and he’ll heal from worse still. We all have our individual traumas. We’re the cause of each other’s traumas but we’re still growing. This is just another piece of a twisted puzzle.”

Sebastian pressed a kiss to his forehead, “I guess. Still, I wish there was something more I could do.”

“Unless we cut that pretty head of his open, I don’t think there’s much that we can do that time and understanding wouldn’t do better.”

\---

Stefano’s fingers were drumming on his knees. They didn’t do that often, usually when his mind was racing and his hands had no chance to catch up. The three with too much nerve damage to be of any use sat still and forgotten. His eye was unfocused and had settled on the dvd player’s clock. His hair was messy and swept over much of his face. 

Joseph reached out, trying to wipe the hair from Stefano’s face, but he flinched and his eye lit up as the rush took him over. 

“Hey,” Joseph gave him a small smile, not lowering his hand.

“Joseph,” Stefano breathed, closing his eye slowly, “my apologies, I was a bit distant.”

“I’d say. You had us worried. How are you feeling?”

“My face hurts.”

“Can I see it?”

Stefano nodded and Joseph wiped the hair away from his face. He was still stiff, his jaw clenched, but he kept his eyelids closed to hide worst of the damage. Over his cheek was a purpled bruise, still a bit raised and swollen. He hissed as Joseph’s knuckles grazed over it. 

“Well, that’s definitely going to get some looks,” Joseph gave him a kiss on the lower rim of the bruise. “Though if you were to keep your hair away from your face more, you’d never get the end of them, handsome bastard.”

That had Stefano laughing a bit. It was risky, calling him a bastard, but the tone was important and he had no problem with compliments. Joseph leaned back and spread out his arms on the back of the couch. It was more of a Sebastian pose than his own, but it was open and inviting and that was what he needed right then. 

“You want to tell me what happened?”

Stefano sighed, letting his hair fall into place before he lay down over Joseph’s chest. “I don’t know what happened. I was coming downstairs to get some water to mix with my fixatives and I saw Sebastian making a mess in the hall. I thought I could just go past him and then. He hit me? I didn’t see it, I could just feel the pain in my face. And he was yelling, but I couldn’t hear because my head was full of static. I had to get out of there.”

Joseph ran a hand down Stefano’s back. Of course, Sebastian had to hit his blind side. That just made everything worse. “You know he didn’t mean to, right? He didn’t see you either.” 

“Part of me knows that. Part of me screams that it was unavoidable and deserved. I remember before, there was a man who I saw as my master, who controlled me, and I had to go through so much to prove my worth to him. All of his followers went through trials, which changed them, to make them worthy of his power. I was the luckiest of them.”

“I wouldn’t say you were lucky,” Joseph mused.

“I survived and I kept my mind and his voice in my head was quiet enough to ignore. But I promised him my allegiance and my body and he took them both how he pleased. With that burst of pain I felt like I was back there and I knew what I had to do to make myself worthy of staying.”

He was so close, it was easy for Joseph to kiss his scalp, to tilt his head with his free hand, and kiss him deeply, hold him closer. “You can stay. You don’t have to prove anything. You don’t have to do anything. You can stay. We love you.”

Stefano wiped at his eyes, his mouth a scribbled line. He was trying to keep himself calm. “I don’t deserve that.”

Joseph kissed him again. “You do. Please stay. Just the way that you are.”

“You’ve all done so much for me.”

“Just be open with us, be with us, please. I love you, Stefano. We all love you. I don’t want to lose you.”

Stefano kissed him back then, hard and passionate, clinging to him. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I love you too. I just. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It all feels so much older than Theodore.”

Hearing him say it, not that he loved all of them, made Joseph’s breath itch. When he’d said it himself, that he loved Stefano instead of it being the whole group, he’d felt a shudder go through him, and he knew that it was true. When it was a group it was so easy to just go along with the rest. 

“It’s alright. We’ve got you. And no one here wants to see you hurt.”

Stefano pulled away from him, just for a moment, to throw a leg over Joseph’s lap and slide over so that he was straddling him. It made kissing him easier and made Joseph’s mind wander to more physical acts. 

“Is there a way I can fix this?” Stefano asked between kisses.

“You can start by being open with us,” Ruben stated as he reached them, flopping onto the couch beside them. “Tell us what you’re feeling, when you’re feeling it. Tell us what all you remember. It will make things easier.”

“And if you wore a goddamn bell,” Sebastian added, walking in more sheepishly, standing before them. There wasn’t space left on the couch. “Are you doing alright?

“I’ll heal,” Stefano answered, slowly falling to the side so that his head was in Ruben’s lap. “Are you?”

“I’m a bit shaken, I’ll admit,” Sebastian smiled at him, trying to look trustworthy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Ruben’s hand was in Stefano’s hair, stroking it as if he was a cat. Stefano didn’t fight it, just breathed through it. “I know.”

“I love you.”

“I know that too,” Stefano smiled, a warm flooding him. “I love you too. I love the three of you. Who would ever have guessed that would happen?”

Ruben said nothing but he bent down to kiss him and the sentiment was still there.


	2. This Little Piggy Went Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a really short thing

He came down slowly, rubbing at the backs of his arms. It was a cold morning, even with the sunlight coming through the windows. His feet were freezing, even in their socks, on the hardwood floor. He wished that he had a bathrobe or something else to warm himself with, especially with how late he had slept in. He knew that there was no warmth to glean from his boyfriends, they’d all would have gone to work by now. 

He didn’t usually sleep in, but there had been an epiphany, and he hadn’t been able to stop working. He’d worked later than Stefano even, and he was usually sculpting or working with his images until dawn. 

There was gentle music coming from the kitchen, a simple instrumental, only a few instruments instead of a full orchestra, drawing his attention. He would have gone there anyway, collecting his pills and some much needed coffee to drive away his exhaustion and the start of a migraine, but the music made it all the more enticing. The smell of coffee was also a nice incentive. 

On the table there was a box of donuts, which were mostly gone but there was a danish and a bismark left over for him. He smiled at the box, noting that they had been purchased specifically for him, because even though he knew Joseph and he had similar tastes, the fact that they had been left aside was its own sort of sweetness. 

There was a burning feeling in his eyes, a tightness in his throat. He swallowed it down. He had been in this body for a few years but he still wasn’t certain about some of its peculiarities. There must have been some allergy he hadn’t been aware of. 

He wiped at his eyes, removing the tears that had collected on his pale eyelashes. Next to the donuts was a mug of coffee, which was still steaming somewhat, and blonde, the way that he liked it. He must not have missed them by much then. He often drank his coffee black, but that was due to not having the time or energy to put much into it. Blonde and with just a tad too much sugar was how he drank it when he was spoiling himself. Now there were other people spoiling him. 

That burning sensation was back and there was the feeling of swimming in chlorine in his nose. He wasn’t going to cry about this, not about coffee and donuts, so there had to be something else going on. It had to be allergies. He didn’t cry over such foolish things. He didn’t even feel sad. 

There was a note slid under the mug and he realized that he didn’t even recognize the mug. It was all white and it didn’t even have a stain on the inside, so it must have been new. Joseph liked silly mugs, with designs and slogans on them, but he normally got them from thrift stores and they were always stolen for Lily’s cocoa. This one was brand new, not just to the house but from the store. On one side there was a pink pigs face and it said, in bright pink “I really like you!” 

He grinned, picking it up and taking a sip. Other than the temperature it was perfect. He quickly checked the bottom of the mug and checked it before putting it in the microwave, taking up the note while it heated up. There were crudely drawn hoof prints on the paper, done in red pen. Sebastian normally drew things on the notes he put in Lily’s lunchbox. No one else ever got them. 

“Don’t think I forgot how you are with pigs. Hopefully this one will be safer with you. I know I’m safer with you than I would have been back then. I know my heart is safer with you too. Take a break now and then, would you? We’ve got a lot of paperwork at the office, but we’ll do what we can to get home early. You better be resting when I get there. -Love, Sebastian.”

He was crying. He didn’t understand why. He knew that people could cry when they were happy but he’d never expected it for himself. The note could have cut him down, so deeply, because he also remembered the kind of man that he had been, but it filled him with glee instead. He set the note down and picked up a tissue instead, wiping at his eyes before the tears could fall too much. He didn’t know how he’d deserved this. How he’d deserved any of them. He he’d deserved a chance at all. They all cared about him so much. No one had ever cared so much about him, no one except for Laura, and that was so long ago. 

The microwave beeped and he took out his coffee. It could have been burned and cheap and awful and he would still have adored it. The pig looked up at him with cartoonishly friendly eyes. The coffee was perfect and it warmed him through. A couple of pills and the migraine would be mitigated before it took over. He put the donuts on a plate and took them to the couch setting his breakfast on the coffee table. 

There was a scientific journal there, just waiting for him. The most recent issue too. It was touching on dream theories and symbolism as well as having an interview with Dr. Ivanovici, who he’d been following for some time on his neurology work. They really did know him well. 

He curled up with his coffee and his orders to rest, waiting for the others to come home. He was good alone, he was used to it. He did better with them though.


End file.
